Venomancy List Ideas

[Jordon]

Just curious what others would suggest in order to maximize on all the poison goodness provided by venomancy. It would seem there are probably some near mandatory options such as the scorpius and poison gamin. However what else would you bring if you wanted to make a poison centric list. I also understand this may not be hyper competitive Marcus play but I am curious how good we can make poison work.

Would you take performers? Would you try and cram as many models with infect as you could? Would you try for a big poison model such as the Dawn Serpent or Rogue Necromancy? How about the Spawn mother? Since she's a henchmen beast model she's the only other natural henchmen aside from Myranda able to benefit from Virulent (of course you could give the beast characteristic to any henchmen for the same effect). 

What would your 50ss list look like?

[Jinn]

Joss with Blade and Claw made into a beast by a Malifaux Raptor seems like a good choice for Virulent, he could also take Bleeding Edge Tech for the Poison Gamin and Scorpius.

Canine Remains have infect and the -1 Wp + Beast characteristic trigger, so they already have synergy with Marcus and the poison just enhances that. Shikome might be okay, but they seem very squishy for 8SS. The big beast with Infect is, as you said, the rogue necromancy which is already a pretty great model to take so it seems almost mandatory to put in the poison Marcus crew.

I wish that all of the poison giving models in Arcanists had infect instead of just handing out poison, same with the Dawn Serpent. Too late now I guess, but it sucks that the Razorspine Rattler doesn't have all that much synergy with Marcus' new upgrade. I also desperately wish the  was inbuilt in Marcus' Shillelagh with his new upgrade.

Back on topic, I ran a 40SS poison list with Marcus that didn't work out too well in a Gaining Grounds league game. My opponent and I were playing mostly seriously and I switched to playing for league points on around turn 4 when I didn't see a way to win.

My list was:

• Marcus - 4SS Cache
  • 1SS - Trail of the Gods
  • 1SS - Venomancy
  • 1SS - Feral Instincts
• Jackalope - 2SS
• Myranda - 8SS
  • 1SS - Imbued Energies
• The Scorpius - 6SS
• Performer - 5SS
• Poison Gamin - 5SS
• Poison Gamin - 5SS
• Poison Gamin - 5SS

I charged Marcus into my opponents crew on activation 1 of turn 2 which was against the game plan for poison. He died, and my opponent was playing Titania with the new tanky upgrade which lead to my mostly minion crew being almost unable to damage her. What I felt the list was lacking was a melee model with the Infect trigger for Marcus to use his new (0) on, but I didn't play Marcus correctly for the poison style.

[Adran]

If I was Lookign at a poison list I would look at poison gamin, scorpinous, performers Shikome and Canine remains to take advatage of the poison. Myranda and Razorspine rattler are good models to put poison out there, and with the need for Myranada to be around I would possible be looking at Imbued Protection on her for DF8 to keep her safe. 

I would imagine the list looks like it works best for a turf war style game where we have several models needing to be in the same place.

I don't have the upgrade or the book, but from the post on here sayign what the upgrade does I can't see a reason why you want it to have infect rather than just straight up giving out poison

[Nikodemus]

19 minutes ago, Adran said:

I don't have the upgrade or the book, but from the post on here sayign what the upgrade does I can't see a reason why you want it to have infect rather than just straight up giving out poison

Marcus gets a (0) to pulse poison by targeting beasts. You get more poison if target beast has the Infect trigger.

[Franchute]

What is your opinion about Kudra in this type of list? I also agree that a turf war like type of game must the best. Hence, dont we need to consider some tanky options such as one of the two defensive upgrades or/and Amina Naidu and/or Steamfitter? What do you think?

[Jordon]

Kudra is probably alright but I still don't really see a huge incentive to bring her though. For her cost you could almost buy another Shikome. Her poison is nice but I feel like a list such as this will have no problems getting out poison. 

I'm curious. Obviously the scorpius is a very important piece so I'm curious if people thought it would be a good idea to have Myranda shapechange into one if it died. Obviously Myranda is also important with her Virulant aura as well.

What are our options for ranged poison?

[Mxbedlam]

So I know they don't have infect but I think that Rattlers have a lot of play here. They give out poison +2 and have wicked, so you could almost make an entire crew that no one can get away from. 

As far as Henchmen, I think Myranda actually wants to stick around in this crew, so i would take her and maybe turn Cassandra into a beast with a raptor. Cassandra is incredibly mobile and hard to take out, and can also hold Practiced Production so your crew can drop scheme markers when needed. Also she can copy Myranda's healing/obey casts. 

I would take at most 1 Poison gamin in this list. 

So that's:Marcus (Veno, Path, Feral),  Myranda (Imbued), Cassandra (PP), Raptor, Poison Gamin, Scorpius,  2 Rattlers. 

That's where I'm starting in my head. No Infect in the list, but I think the heavy poison damage at EoT could do some work. Especially if Myranda and Cassandra are healing up models 

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Mrbedlam said:

So I know they don't have infect but I think that Rattlers have a lot of play here. They give out poison +2 and have wicked, so you could almost make an entire crew that no one can get away from. 

As far as Henchmen, I think Myranda actually wants to stick around in this crew, so i would take her and maybe turn Cassandra into a beast with a raptor. Cassandra is incredibly mobile and hard to take out, and can also hold Practiced Production so your crew can drop scheme markers when needed. Also she can copy Myranda's healing/obey casts. 

I would take at most 1 Poison gamin in this list. 

So that's:Marcus (Veno, Path, Feral),  Myranda (Imbued), Cassandra (PP), Raptor, Poison Gamin, Scorpius,  2 Rattlers. 

That's where I'm starting in my head. No Infect in the list, but I think the heavy poison damage at EoT could do some work. Especially if Myranda and Cassandra are healing up models 

I would very strongly suggest dropping the Raptor for a Canine remains. Yes, it will cost Cassandra 1 wp, and some damage to turn her into a beast, but you gain a beast that charges poisoned models for 1. 

With regards to the targetting beast with infect, I guess a lot of it depends on how you play Marcus. Giving out Poison +2 (I assume) instead of poison +1 means you don't have to do the action every turn, but if the idea is you poison the enemy models lots, you don't gain much advantage of them being poison +10 over poison +6. 

[SevenThirtySeven]

I've played 2 games w Venomancy recently, and the only no-brainer crew selection pick I'd make is to include performer.  Lots of beasts and arcanists can stack poison, but having 4-5 poison on a model doesn't do much unless you can expunge it for damage.

I think a huge problem with any Marcus poison list is that Venomancy is so limited in model scope.  For the Toxic Musk (0), so many of the choices for him which dish out poison (Myranda, Dawn Serpent, Kudra, Rattler, etc) don't have an Infect trigger.  For the 2nd ability, Virulent, the poison only stacks with Marcus and.... Beast Henchmen..?  Isn't the only Beast Henchman Myranda?  Sure you could use Feral or a raptor to hand out beast, but that's way too much effort for an additional poison damage.  For this to have a chance to be any good it would have to buff a large part of your crew.

The upgrade needs to be buffed to be taken seriously, because Marcus already has such a good 3 upgrade set up. Especially since Frame doesn't look like it will be a suited scheme anymore in GG2018.

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

For the 2nd ability, Virulent, the poison only stacks with Marcus and.... Beast Henchmen..?  Isn't the only Beast Henchman Myranda?  Sure you could use Feral or a raptor to hand out beast, but that's way too much effort for an additional poison damage.  For this to have a chance to be any good it would have to buff a large part of your crew.

Myranda and The Spawn Mother are the only two beast Henchmen. Paul Crocket does a lot with beasts but I don't think he is one himself.

It doesn't seem like having a Raptor turn a Henchman into a beast would be that much trouble. 

[Jordon]

10 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

I would take at most 1 Poison gamin in this list. 

Any particular reasons why just one? It seems to me like they're incredibly valuable with their aura and infect trigger. Not to mention that with consistent poison floating around they actually make pretty solid hitters. 

8 hours ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

The upgrade needs to be buffed to be taken seriously, because Marcus already has such a good 3 upgrade set up. Especially since Frame doesn't look like it will be a suited scheme anymore in GG2018.

I'm pretty confident this was a thematic upgrade and not really designed to compete as a main Marcus style. He's already one of, if not, the top master for arcanists so I don't think he really needs any sort of buff with these upgrades. It's fun, it works, and I feel like it's not half bad. More importantly is that it makes otherwise subpar beast models a second chance on life. 

 

Overall I feel like the key with this upgrade is trying not to work too hard at it. Taking some of these poison models are great when you can set it up. However it has to make sense over simply hiring something like a Cerberus who already puts out a ton of damage. 

[SevenThirtySeven]

14 hours ago, WWHSD said:

It doesn't seem like having a Raptor turn a Henchman into a beast would be that much trouble. 

Academically, sure, it isn't that much trouble. But to guarantee it going off it requires that you have a tome in hand (which is not always guaranteed), and Marcus loves his tomes.

And let me know how you feel when you red joker the relented double neg dmg flip on your own model 😩. It has happened to me twice already.  Only slightly better is when you black joker the dmg flip, bc the beast trigger is only after dmging

Overall it's a gamble which I take when I really need a big model to be consistently buffed or alphaed all game, but it's still a risk, and I'm not sure if it's always as simple as you say. And I wouldn't add the extra risk for the slim benefits which Venomamy provides.

[Ludvig]

14 hours ago, WWHSD said:

Myranda and The Spawn Mother are the only two beast Henchmen. Paul Crocket does a lot with beasts but I don't think he is one himself.

It doesn't seem like having a Raptor turn a Henchman into a beast would be that much trouble. 

Having to use the tome could actually hurt for Marcus.

42 minutes ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

And let me know how you feel when you red joker the relented double neg dmg flip on your own model 😩. It has happened to me twice already.  Only slightly better is when you black joker the dmg flip, bc the beast trigger is only after dmging

Sure, it's bad to lose the joker but that happens all the time on silly little abilities that just require you flipping a 5+ or similar. I would hardly argue against attacking your own models because of that risk. Plenty of turns I don't see the red joker at all so it's not much of a difference. Black jokering is probably worse because it ruins what you were trying to do.

[SevenThirtySeven]

55 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Sure, it's bad to lose the joker but that happens all the time on silly little abilities that just require you flipping a 5+ or similar. I would hardly argue against attacking your own models because of that risk. Plenty of turns I don't see the red joker at all so it's not much of a difference. Black jokering is probably worse because it ruins what you were trying to do.

I literally say in my next paragraph, which you didn't quote, that making someone a beast w a raptor is a calculated risk I take when I need to.  😉

Im not arguing against attacking your own models, just saying it's not a risk free maneuver. I think we are both in agreement here hah.

I would disagree with the black joker bit, since it would take some convincing for you to say that making someone a beast would be worth 5 dmg from your own raptor, especially when Marcus could just use a (0) Feral on them if he had to.

[Ludvig]

6 minutes ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

I literally say in my next paragraph, which you didn't quote, that making someone a beast w a raptor is a calculated risk I take when I need to.  😉

Im not arguing against attacking your own models, just saying it's not a risk free maneuver. I think we are both in agreement here hah.

I would disagree with the black joker bit, since it would take some convincing for you to say that making someone a beast would be worth 5 dmg from your own raptor, especially when Marcus could just use a (0) Feral on them if he had to.

You do know that no one is forcing you to use that red joker? It is a choice you get when you flip it to take it even on a negative, not something you must do. You must use the black one no matter the fate modifiers though.

[SevenThirtySeven]

Just now, Ludvig said:

You do know that no one is forcing you to use that red joker? It is a choice you get when you flip it to choose it even on a negative, not something you must do.

Wow, I did not know that. I was under the impression that when a joker popped up on a flip you had to use it in every situation. Let me review my rule book.

[Ludvig]

Page 23: "The red joker may also be chosen when a player is compelled to choose their lowest card, even though it is not the lowest card"